Music of the Wild 



so close I could focus six of them, the least large 

 enough to be considered unusual in broken wood, 

 on one small photographic plate. Where several 

 sprang from a common base some of them were 

 forced to lean, but the great average grew skyward 

 straight as pines, and in the stillest hour the wind 

 whispered among the interlaced branches, and in a 

 gale roared to drown the voice of the thunder. 



Little trees beginning their upward struggle to 

 reach the light caused me to feel that they were 

 TheAbid- destroying pictures of great beauty. At last we 

 e found an elevation of some height and climbing 

 mighty it, secured the view that awaited us. As soon as 

 we were level with the top of the undergrowth, 

 that was a tangle in the most open spaces, not 

 so dense where the trees grew closer together, it 

 appeared to stretch away endlessly, making a vari- 

 egated, mossy, green floor that at a little distance 

 seemed sufficiently material to bear our weight. 

 Knowing this to be an illusion, I sent my soul jour- 

 neying, instead. Crowding everywhere arose the 

 big, vine-entwined tree trunks, stretching from 

 forty to seventy feet to their branching. The cool 

 air of this enclosed space between the bush tops 

 and the tree branches had a spicy fragrance. The 

 carpet of green velvet below and the roof of green 

 branches above formed a dominant emerald note; 

 but it was mellowed with the soft grays of the tree 

 trunks and tinted with the penetrant blue of the 

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